Etihad Atmosphere - 2022/23

Manchester33 said:
We've all seen European ultras walking to the stadium. It can be quite an impressive sight. Unfortunately, the club is trying to spin too many plates. They want a better atmosphere, but they also want to appeal to kids/families (for the record when I was a kid I'd have still hated this) and they end up with utter cringefest material like this 'organised walk to the ground'.



We need to change the mentality of the 90% of fans who can't be arsed contributing to the atmosphere. The Etihad is too friendly and nice. There should be a bit of an edge about going to a game. Football is intrinsically tribal and we should want to be a noisy, intimidating venue for any opposing fans/players. That doesn't mean we should all dress up as green street idiots, but come on, this is embarrassing. Imagine these lot trying to walk down the street outside Maine Road?

The club tries to control the atmosphere too much, which sets a certain psychology around the stadium (lazy, apathetic, reactive approach to building atmosphere).

- Light shows
- City Square 'entertainment'
- West Reception 'entertainment' as players arrive
- Bands/DJs in the stadium
- Noisy, chart music played at a deafening volume over the PA system
- LED flags on advertisement boards

It's all too much! Cut out all the cheese, literally replace all the above with nothing, and fans will start to build an atmosphere themselves. It might take a while but it will happen. At both Leeds away and United away, there was no 'pre-match entertainment', no music on in the stadium, and so on. It creates an environment where fans CAN build an atmosphere rather than having a cheesy one shoved down our throats and destroying any potential do it organically!
Click to expand...

Brilliant post.
 
Manchester33 said:
We've all seen European ultras walking to the stadium. It can be quite an impressive sight. Unfortunately, the club is trying to spin too many plates. They want a better atmosphere, but they also want to appeal to kids/families (for the record when I was a kid I'd have still hated this) and they end up with utter cringefest material like this 'organised walk to the ground'.



We need to change the mentality of the 90% of fans who can't be arsed contributing to the atmosphere. The Etihad is too friendly and nice. There should be a bit of an edge about going to a game. Football is intrinsically tribal and we should want to be a noisy, intimidating venue for any opposing fans/players. That doesn't mean we should all dress up as green street idiots, but come on, this is embarrassing. Imagine these lot trying to walk down the street outside Maine Road?

The club tries to control the atmosphere too much, which sets a certain psychology around the stadium (lazy, apathetic, reactive approach to building atmosphere).

- Light shows
- City Square 'entertainment'
- West Reception 'entertainment' as players arrive
- Bands/DJs in the stadium
- Noisy, chart music played at a deafening volume over the PA system
- LED flags on advertisement boards

It's all too much! Cut out all the cheese, literally replace all the above with nothing, and fans will start to build an atmosphere themselves. It might take a while but it will happen. At both Leeds away and United away, there was no 'pre-match entertainment', no music on in the stadium, and so on. It creates an environment where fans CAN build an atmosphere rather than having a cheesy one shoved down our throats and destroying any potential do it organically!
Click to expand...

I cringed so hard i gave myself a hernia watching that. So predictable too. My big concern is that we have people at the club responsible for "matchday experience" who were never at Maine Road or the dozens/hundreds of other grounds some of us have been to and have no instinctive understanding of our fanbase and what makes/breaks an atmosphere.
 
I’m not going to criticise it. The new bar are at the back of 115 is a great success. It’s always packed, the service is quick, there are plenty of seating places if you get there early enough, there’s a DJ spinning the Manc tunes, etc. On the flip side it means fans get in there earlier and stay longer, meaning they can drink more. So it has had a detrimental impact on singers and the atmosphere on SSL1.
 
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jrb said:
I’m not going to and criticise it. The new bar are at the back of 115 is a great success. It’s always packed, the service is quick, there are plenty of seating places if you get there early enough, there’s a DJ spinning the Manc tunes, etc. On the flip side it means fans get in there earlier and stay longer, meaning they can drink more. So it has had a detrimental impact on singers and the atmosphere on SSL1.
Click to expand...
I'd have thought easier access to booze would improve the atmosphere.
 
Manchester33 said:


This is a video from around 42 mins on Friday. The game is still on. This is how busy the bar area is.

I don’t get why people pay hundreds (if not thousands) of £s per year on football tickets when they could watch it in the pub?
Click to expand...

It is a pub, with thousands of blues in it. All with something in common. The best pub in all the world if you ask me.

Don’t forget it’s a Friday night game. Different mentality Friday nights. Many People finished work for the weekend only a couple of hours before hand and want to let off some steam and it just happens that they can do that, see the game live and their mates at the same time. Footy and beer go hand in hand for the vast majority and that’s the result of it when you put a bar at a footy match. It would be the same if it was Sunday league. Although the footy would be drink worthy :-))
 
Didsbury Dave said:
I cringed so hard i gave myself a hernia watching that. So predictable too. My big concern is that we have people at the club responsible for "matchday experience" who were never at Maine Road or the dozens/hundreds of other grounds some of us have been to and have no instinctive understanding of our fanbase and what makes/breaks an atmosphere.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Cringeometer of the scale. It feels like the club gets this stuff wrong at every turn. Intentions good I’m sure, but they are tone deaf and it opens us up to (even more) ridicule.
 
Manchester33 said:


This is a video from around 42 mins on Friday. The game is still on. This is how busy the bar area is.

I don’t get why people pay hundreds (if not thousands) of £s per year on football tickets when they could watch it in the pub?
Click to expand...

I'm going to play devil's advocate here a little but on Friday the away areas were starting to empty around that time too. I was surprised how empty SS2 looked, almost everyone had gone to the concourse at HT, it must have been rammed in the toilets and bars. I couldn't see SS3 properly as it is too dark from the other side of the ground but felt it was quite empty too. Probably taking advantage of the cheap northern "beer".

I never miss a second of the game if I can help it but I do hate having to navigate the crowds to even find the end of the queue for the toilets at HT so sometimes nip out just before the end of the first half. Can't see the point of getting a beer though if it takes 10 mins to get served and you have to throw it down your neck. Not that fizzy shite they serve anyroad ;)
 
Manchester33 said:
We've all seen European ultras walking to the stadium. It can be quite an impressive sight. Unfortunately, the club is trying to spin too many plates. They want a better atmosphere, but they also want to appeal to kids/families (for the record when I was a kid I'd have still hated this) and they end up with utter cringefest material like this 'organised walk to the ground'.



We need to change the mentality of the 90% of fans who can't be arsed contributing to the atmosphere. The Etihad is too friendly and nice. There should be a bit of an edge about going to a game. Football is intrinsically tribal and we should want to be a noisy, intimidating venue for any opposing fans/players. That doesn't mean we should all dress up as green street idiots, but come on, this is embarrassing. Imagine these lot trying to walk down the street outside Maine Road?

The club tries to control the atmosphere too much, which sets a certain psychology around the stadium (lazy, apathetic, reactive approach to building atmosphere).

- Light shows
- City Square 'entertainment'
- West Reception 'entertainment' as players arrive
- Bands/DJs in the stadium
- Noisy, chart music played at a deafening volume over the PA system
- LED flags on advertisement boards

It's all too much! Cut out all the cheese, literally replace all the above with nothing, and fans will start to build an atmosphere themselves. It might take a while but it will happen. At both Leeds away and United away, there was no 'pre-match entertainment', no music on in the stadium, and so on. It creates an environment where fans CAN build an atmosphere rather than having a cheesy one shoved down our throats and destroying any potential do it organically!
Click to expand...

Any idea what game that "walk" was from? Of all the cheesy things they've done, that's got to be up there with the worst of them!
 
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